Project Hero has close ties to Memorial

By Mandy Cook

While Memorial’s Chancellor and retired general Rick Hillier
is currently at the forefront of a national campaign to encourage
Canadian universities to provide tuition bursaries to the children
of fallen Canadian soldiers, former Memorial University President
Eddy Campbell is reluctant to claim the movement as a
“Memorial idea.”

“Chancellor Hillier talked to me and I took it to the Board
of Regents, and we jumped all over it,” said Dr. Campbell.
“We may have been the first to approve it, but there are
other universities on board as well. I’m proud our university
stepped forward.”

Project Hero is a four-year undergraduate scholarship program for
any child who has lost a parent in the Canadian Forces killed in
action in the Afghanistan conflict. Starting in September,
bursaries will be dispersed at Memorial University, the University
of Ottawa, the University of Windsor, the University of Calgary and
Concordia University.

Chancellor Hillier and Ontario businessman Kevin Reed have been
championing the cause in recent months, with the ultimate aim of
every Canadian university signing on.

Memorial’s Board of Regents approved the scholarship program
in early July. Despite Dr. Campbell’s reticence to assert
Memorial’s ownership of Project Hero, he does say the program
has a special resonance here.

“The fact that Memorial University was founded in memory of
those who fell at the battle of Beaumont Hamel on July 1, 1916, and
that it says on a plaque in the lobby of the Arts and
Administration Building, ‘That in freedom of learning their
cause and sacrifice might not be forgotten,’ really captures,
I think, the essence of why the bursary was created,” said
Dr. Campbell.

While some criticize the program’s close association with a
controversial war, Dr. Campbell said he is unaware of anyone who
doesn’t feel strongly that Canadian soldiers are striving to
help a country in great need under very difficult
circumstances.

Meantime, Dr. Campbell said he hopes Project Hero will provide
those serving in Afghanistan a sense of comfort and peace of mind
regarding their children’s future, and open doors to the
children themselves in order to make good choices into
adulthood.

Ideally, if every Canadian university commits to the cause, Dr.
Campbell said it would demonstrate what he’s felt from the
start.